Xavier castoff not visiting OSU

UPDATED 4:50 p.m.

Dezmine "Dez" Wells, a 6-foot-5 wing who started 32 games for Xavier last season and was voted by Atlantic 10 coaches to the conference's all-rookie team, will not make an official visit to Ohio State this weekend after all, a source close to the Buckeyes program said this afternoon.

Dave Telep of ESPN.com first tweeted news of the visit this morning, and Wells later confirmed his intention in a text message to Ari Wasserman of Buckeye Sports Bulletin.

Wells averaged 9.8 points and 4.9 rebounds per game and shot 50.4 percent from the field for the Musketeers last season. He missed four games while suspended for his role in the brawl between Xavier and Cincinnati players during their annual "Crosstown Shootout" game.

He would have been Xavier's top returning scorer next season, but he was expelled by the school Aug. 3 for what was announced as a "serious violation" of the student code of conduct. Wells appealed, but the expulsion was upheld. The school announced it Aug. 21.

Earlier this week, Hamilton County prosecutor Joe Deters said no criminal charges would be filed against Wells after a grand jury reviewed evidence of an alleged sexual assault involving Wells and declined to indict him. Deters said he hoped the school would revisit its ruling, to no avail.

Deters said on WLW radio that it was “fundamentally unfair” to Wells that his fate was decided by a conduct board of students, faculty and staff.

“There is something seriously flawed with a procedure where a young man and his accuser appear before a group of people, which I would suggest probably isn’t very well trained in assessing these types of cases, and they sit there and tell their stories. No lawyers, nothing. There’s just something wrong with that,” Deters said.

Wells told cbssports.com this week that he engaged in a game of "truth or dare" with a female acquaintance that ended, he said, in consensual sex. She alleged he assaulted her.

Xavier is under federal mandate to reform the way it handles cases of sexual assault and sexual harassment after the Education Department investigated whether it had discriminated against those filing claims, The Cincinnati Enquirer reported this week.

As part of the investigation, the newspaper reported, the government determined that Xavier had allowed one student to remain on campus to finish classes for the semester after being expelled for sexual assault. That same student had been suspended before that on a similar sexual assault charge.

"I do think what happened previously at Xavier affected what they did with me," Wells told cbssports.com.

Wells reportedly visited Kentucky yesterday, is at Memphis today and is scheduled to be at Maryland on Saturday. Telep reported that he also plans to visit Oregon.